In a broad sense, American political philosophy is based on the idea that truth emerges out of the continuous competition between two or more competing viewpoints, as is common in liberal polities. For instance, instead of approving or disapproving of the current office holder. several people run for office, and the candidate that can articulate the most popular conception of why she should win gets the office; courts are contests between two parties with a neutral arbiter; the press consists of any number of competing media outlets; and so on.
Now, it is entirely possible that this institutionalized competition is a fraud; that the processes don’t actually lead to the most truthful results, or the best policies; that the whole thing is wasteful, and accords the most political power to those with the least just position, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, most Americans have been indoctrinated into using this conception of the just, and politicians have used it as sort of a sociopolitical touchstone.
you can deconstruct it. you can be cynical about it. you can point out that the constitution was written in part to protect the peculiar institution of slavery. At the same time, it is counterproductive to discard the entire concept of competitive discourse at the very point in time than monomania has empowered the right to destroy our society, and our planet.
This is largely snark, but provides useful insight into how Centrist Twitter is perceived by the left:
Alyssa Milano got dragged on Twitter today for cluelessly using an excerpt of this without any apparent understanding of the whole thing:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!
Cypher going all-in on his favourite punching bag:
I hear what you’re saying, but I obviously have disagreements. I’ve posted some things on related issues previously.
From here:
And from here:
And from here:
—
That said: I do not discard the concept of competitive discourse. What do you think I’ve been doing on BB for the last year?
But it is a contest, not a game. And we are competing for life-and-death stakes, on a global scale. Gracefully accepting defeat is not a survivable option.
Rhetoric and persuasion are valuable tools, but they are not the only tools available or required. The majority of the American public (and the world) are already opposed to American fascism, but the majority of the people are not in control of the country.
I do not advocate violence except as a defensive last resort, but I do emphasise that peaceful ≠ polite. Legality and civility are of purely tactical concern; laws and police have no moral weight in this situation. Meaningful strike action has nearly always been illegal; the gains of the working class a century ago were not won by politely obeying the law.
I have no interest in playing nice with fascists, and I have no interest in a fair fight. This is not a game.
…all of that is rather removed from Lawrence Tribe, though.
To clarify, just in case: Tribe is not anything close to being a fascist himself. He’s just, IMO, a prominent example of catastrophically foolish privilege.
We’re getting into fundamental difference-of-perspective stuff, so I won’t push this too hard, but a few points:
-
Obligatory disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with everything I quote. Especially with the more strongly-phrased stuff, I quote it to demonstrate the perspectives of others.
-
On the foreign policy front, pretty much everything that I criticise Trump for was also done to some degree by Obama as President and HRC as SecState. And by every administration before them. That’s kinda my point: the problem of US imperialism is much older and deeper than Trump. The current situation is just cranking up the volume and tearing off the mask.
-
Where did the War on Drugs come from? Which country began it, which country spread it internationally, which country heavily leverages their economic and military power for it to this day?
-
When a small country “invites” a large country to base troops within its territory, how often is that truly instigated by the smaller country?
-
When a small-country elite requests military aid from a large country, in order to suppress their own people, how often is “terrorism” or “drugs” used as the excuse for providing this assistance?
I used to know a guy who was a US “advisor” in Nicaragua. He didn’t speak any Spanish, but he was damned good with a sniper rifle.